AMAZON STUDIOS' 'POWER' PLAY
Vernon Sanders discusses Betting $465M On The First Season Of ‘LOTR: The Rings Of Power’ And What’s Ahead For Seasons 2 & 3 |
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power set records before a frame of it had been released when word came out of New Zealand last year that its eight-episode first season cost a record $465 million to produce (not factoring in tax rebates and amortizing start-up costs.) In a conversation with Deadline, Vernon Sanders, Head of Global TV for Amazon Studios, says that the financial bet "has more than paid off." He addresses the success of the show on Prime Video — where it broke records for most global viewers in its first day (25 million) and overall (more than 100 million); for minutes streamed (24 billion) and sign-ups worldwide during its launch window. It also attracted younger viewers (a record number of adults 18 to 34 for a Prime Video original) and affluent audiences (40% in households with income greater than $100K). It even delivered a boost beyond the screen, lifting Amazon’s sales of the J.R.R. Tolkien books on which the series is based. >>> "Iconic Moments" From Books Are Coming |
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'Water,' Worldwide - The highly anticipated sequel Avatar: The Way of Water has finished its first weekend with a $434.5M global bow. Of that, $300.5M comes from the international box office. While that opening is about 78% ahead of the first Avatar, it is below projections. Partly, that’s because China was a swing. It ended up at $57.1M for what had been expected as a potential $100M bow. >>> Impact Of Covid Concerns
Why 2028 Is A Key Oscars Date - The year 2028 has quietly become a year of reckoning for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Academy officials have exercised an option to truncate their agreement with Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, shifting the final Dolby show from 2032 to 2028, even though the move cost them $10 million. That termination date matches the scheduled expiration of the Academy’s domestic broadcast contract with ABC. >>> Preparing For A Reboot
The Film That Lit My Fuse - Chinonye Chukwu, director of Till, says she will never forget the first time she saw Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. Though she had long wanted to be a filmmaker, it was only when she saw 8 1/2 that she "really began to understand the possibilities that exist with cinematic language." >>>Watch The Interview
Quite A Tail For 'The Whale' - After debuting to the strongest per-screen average of the year, Darren Aronofsky's The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser, had a strong hold its second weekend out. >>>Expanding December 21
'Wednesday' Unites Amazon & Netflix - After digesting MGM, Amazon is now responsible for Wednesday, which has quickly become Netflix's second biggest English-language series. And with 1 billion hours of the show viewed in less than a month, renewal talks have now begun between the two streaming rivals. >>>Also in business with Hulu, FX, NBC, ABC & CBS |
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Josh Lucas was cast as a young John Dutton before Yellowstone even premiered on Paramount, but it would take five seasons before the character’s backstory would actually start to unspool. Here, the actor best known for A Beautiful Mind and Sweet Home Alabama talks about the interminable wait to hang out on the Montana ranch with everyone else. >>>Read The Interview |
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BY THE NUMBERS 26 - The number of matches — over the course of 16 years — it took for Lionel Messi to win his first World Cup title |
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More News
⚖ After years of legal clashes, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard reached a multi-million-dollar settlement of Heard's defamation suit against her ex-husband.
🎮 Epic Games, the maker of video game smash Fortnite, has agreed to pay a record $520 million to resolve two Federal Trade Commission complaints. The regulatory agency accused Epic of violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and using design tricks to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases.
📺 “We’re not friends anymore. You work for me,” Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav told new CNN boss and longtime pal Chris Licht when Licht took over. After layoffs, reassignments and a shift in strategic focus that’s angered some, Licht has applied that cut-and-dried attitude to his new job.
🎥 The first epic trailer for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer has dropped and it's full of foreboding, stark desertscapes and primordial explosions. "We imagine a future and our imaginings horrify. They would fear it until they understand it, and they won’t understand it until they’ve used it," Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer intones in the trailer.
🦠 Billy Joel has postponed his last Madison Square Garden concert of this year, citing a "viral infection." The postponement was announced on Saturday evening for the planned Monday show, which has been moved to June 2. Joel wrote on Twitter that he was "hoping to be closer to full recovery by now," but "sadly, that hasn't happened."
🐻 Quentin Tarantino revealed that he wrote a role specifically for Adam Sandler in Inglorious Basterds: Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz was eventually played by Eli Roth in the 2009 war film. Sandler had to decline because he was already filming Judd Apatow’s Funny People.
📖 A new book from Kate Andersen Brower, Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit and Glamour of An Icon, details how the Oscar winner's time in Washington as a "political wife" turned her not only into, in her description, a drunk and a junkie, but also into one of Hollywood's greatest activists who knew how to pull the levers of power. 🚨 Iranian authorities have arrested Taraneh Alidoosti, one of the country’s best known actresses. The BBC, quoting Iranian state media, reported Alidoosti was detained on charges of "spreading falsehoods" about the protest movement that has gripped the country. In an Instagram post last week, she condemned the execution of a man over his involvement with the protests. Alidoosti is best known for her role in the Oscar-winning film The Salesman. |
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Trending  TV powerhouse Taylor Sheridan unveiled his newest Yellowstone prequel, 1923, this weekend, with big-screen icons Harrison Ford and Hellen Mirren leading the cast. Meanwhile, the flagship show has entered its midseason stretch, setting up a finale that promises to be filled with drama.
🔻 Elon Musk banned another journalist from Twitter this weekend with little explanation and then, in his own poll where he publicly asked users if he "should step down as head of Twitter," 57% of them voted "Yes." He also reversed a ban on tweets promoting rival social platforms. |
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Obituaries
🕯 Shirley Eikhard, the songwriter behind Bonnie Raitt‘s Grammy-winning 1991 hit "Something to Talk About," has died. She was 67 and died Thursday at Headwaters Health Care center in Orangeville, Ontario from cancer complications. In addition to Raitt, Eikhard had songs covered by Cher, Emmylou Harris, Anne Murray and Chet Atkins. 🕯 Bertha Barbee McNeal , whose Motown group The Velvelettes had hits with "Needle in a Haystack" and "(He Was) Really Saying Something," died Thursday of colon cancer in hospice in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She was 82. McNeal and The Velvelettes' hit "He Was Really Saying Something" was covered by the British group Bananarama. The Velvelettes were cited by singer Amy Winehouse as a major influence. 🕯 Camille Meyer, formerly known as Camille Grammer, is mourning the loss of her mother Maureen Wilson Donatacci. The former star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills said her mother had died of cancer at the age of 75. Wilson Donatacci appeared in a handful of RHOBH episodes throughout Meyer’s time on the Bravo reality series. Some memorable moments include the charity events Meyer’s mom threw to raise awareness for cancer. 🕯 Kim Simmonds , leader of the last post-Beatles wave of British blues bands with Savoy Brown, has died at the age of 75. Simmonds died Tuesday, the band announced on Facebook on Thursday. The group had been together for more than 55 years. Savoy Brown was in the late ’60s British Invasion blues rock surge. Mixing originals with American blues standards, the band was a rotating cast of musicians, with Simmonds at its core. 🕯 See the 400-plus influential figures we've lost this year in Deadline's 2022 Hollywood & Media Deaths photo gallery. |
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On the Radar
Wed - Oscar Shortlists released
Fri - Babylon premieres
Sat - Santa Tracker livestream on Hulu; It's A Wonderful Life on NBC
Sun - Christmas Day
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"The Honor Of A Lifetime" - Taking multitasking to a whole new level — i.e. 10,000 feet — Tom Cruise combined a skydiving stunt for Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning with a video "thank you" to Top Gun: Maverick fans who came out in droves this year to make the film the biggest of his long career. In another on-set featurette released this morning, Cruise and his Mission collaborators also teased the "biggest stunt in cinema history:" a motorcycle jump off a cliff in Norway. |
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